Senator McCain Files New Bill That Attacks Your Access to Supplements and Repeals Key Sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act

McCain’s bill is called The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA). It would repeal key sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). DSHEA protects supplements if 1) they are food products that have been in the food supply and not chemically altered or 2) if they were sold as supplements prior to 1994, the year that DSHEA was passed. If a supplement fits one of these two descriptions, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cannot arbitrarily ban it or reclassify it as a drug.

These protections are far from perfect. They discourage companies from developing new forms of supplements. New supplements may be arbitrarily banned by the FDA or adopted by drug companies in a way that precludes their further sale as supplements.

McCain’s bill would wipe out even the minimal protections contained in DSHEA. It would give the FDA full discretion and power to compile a discreet list of supplements allowed to remain on the market while banning all others.

Everyone knows that the FDA is friendly to drug companies (which pay its bills and provide good revolving door jobs) and hostile to supplement companies. Under this bill, this same Agency could quite arbitrarily ban any supplement it wished or turn it over to drug companies to be developed as a drug and sold for multiples of its price as a supplement.

We must prevent this bill from gaining traction! Protect your access to supplements by contacting your senators today and asking them NOT to co-sponsor the Dietary Supplement Safety Act but rather to oppose it.

McCain’s Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA) appears to be supported by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) which is funded by major league sports teams including baseball, football and others. The recent suspensions of NFL and other professional sports figures is much in the news, and the goal of the sports industry appears to be to shift the spotlight from their players to the supplements industry. In his comments, Senator McCain cited six NFL players recently suspended for testing positive for banned substances and purportedly exposed to these substances through dietary supplements.

The problem here of course is one of illegal sale and use of steroids. So why dismantle the supplement industry in order to control already illegal substances?

The FDA currently has complete and total authority to stop illegal steroids and, more broadly, to regulate dietary supplements. If the agency were doing its job, it could and would have prevented the sale of illegal steroids. The answer to this problem is not to give FDA more power. The Agency simply needs to do it’s job.

Why would a bill be offered to solve an illegal steroid problem that does not really address the steroid problem but instead gives the FDA complete and arbitrary control over all supplements? The answer is simple.

There are a lot of vested interests which are threatened by supplements. Drug companies do not like them because they represent a low cost, safer, and often more effective alternative to drugs. The FDA does not like them because supplements do not come through the FDA approval process and therefore do not support the FDA budget.

Why not simply require that supplements be brought through the FDA’s drug approval process? Wouldn’t that create a level playing field?

That is probably the argument that Senator McCain has been sold. But it is a completely false argument. The FDA drug approval process costs as much as a billion dollars. It is not economically feasible to spend such vast sums on substances that are not protected by patent, and natural substances cannot legally be patented.

This is the great “Catch 22” of American medicine. The FDA, which is supposed to guard and promote our health, is hostile to the kind of natural medicine—based on diet, supplements, and exercise—that represents the real future of healthcare. The Agency has either been captured by drug interests or is trapped in a catastrophically expensive, toxic, and ineffective patented-drug model.

Senator McCain has no doubt offered this bill in good faith. But he has been sold a bill of goods by special interests. And he has been naïve enough not to know that he is being used.

This exceptionally bad bill also requires the reporting of all minor adverse events related to supplements. This is in addition to the already existing requirement to report adverse events. This will further stack the deck against small supplement companies by creating new, unnecessary, even more cumbersome, and of course very expensive administrative hurdles. The result: the consolidation of the supplement industry into a few big companies.If passed, this bill will likely result in the disappearance from store shelves of many supplements currently on the market. In addition to fewer supplements, there would likely be much lower doses available. Unbridled authority would be handed to the FDA, an agency that needs a top to bottom overhaul, not ever more power over our lives.

The FDA will like this because it believes that it can more easily control a few industry giants. But isn’t it more likely that the industry giants will eventually gain control over the FDA?

The FDA is already misusing the adverse event reporting process that exists. Drugs rack up thousands of adverse event reports without any action. Just recently, the FDA yanked from the market a supplement product based on just a couple of alleged adverse event reports without even allowing the company (an old and respected firm) to provide any counter-evidence or counter-argument.

The bill also allows the FDA to yank a product (at the company’s expense) if there is a “reasonable probability” that it is “adulterated” or “misbranded”. Let’s remember that “adulterated” could mean there is a minor record keeping error on the producer’s part and “misbranded” can mean that the producer simply tells the truth about the product. An “adulterated” and “misbranded” supplement in Orwellian FDA speak may actually be both completely safe and effective.

If passed, this bill will likely result in the disappearance from store shelves of many supplements currently on the market. In addition to fewer supplements, there would likely be much lower doses available. Unbridled authority would be handed to the FDA, an agency that needs a top to bottom overhaul, not ever more power over our lives.

If McCain’s bill passes, we can look to Europe for a snapshot of what we may be in for: EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, has sharply reduced the list of available supplements and is in process of reducing potencies to ridiculous levels, such as less beta carotene than can be found in half of a large carrot. Europeans already look to the US to obtain their dietary supplements. If this bill passes, where will we obtain ours?

Please take action immediately. TAKE ACTIONTell your senators NOT to co- sponsor this legislation and to do everything in their power to defeat it. Then forward this to your friends and family and ask then to do the same!

82 Responses to “Senator McCain Files New Bill That Attacks Your Access to Supplements and Repeals Key Sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act”

Thank you all for being honest.I have been useing herbs and organic foods for 36 yrs,I have been liveing a healthy,active life,I have had 9 children naturally no vaccinations,only herbs,organic foods,lots of excercise,They are all healthy,Happy,and are all out there doing the same.Mcaine,go back to Oil,You are going to hell,Leave everybody else alone with thier choices in life.We have choice in this country,And Light will prevail.Leave us alone!

Really educational – continue to spread your message. Getting excited about an update. For too long now have I had the need to begin my own blog. Guess if I put it off any more I’ll never ever do it. I’ll make sure to include you in my Blogroll. Thanks again!!

I need these vitamins for my condition. I thought McCain was for DE regulation? What a joke that man is! McCain, stay away from my needs! You already have healthcare unattainable are vitamins to be next?! Buzz off! America is tired of you people!

Taking all natural supplements is not a bad thing. The supplement I’ve been taking got rid of the numbness in my right hand, my knees don’t ache anymore and I have a lot of energy. They are all natural, no caffeine, no stimulants!!!

I have been taken herbal supplement since 1987. I havn’t had a cold or the flu in over twenty years ian 62 now and i never felt better. I excersixe everyday. and i love my herbal tea. If they.
(John McCain) and the drug compaines take away that righr i will give up my citizenship in America and leave, i will move to another country where i have the right to take care of my own health.

I am an herbalist and own a retail herb store in Morro Bay, CA. In June I begin my 15th year in business. Obviously this would demolish my business. I haven’t heard anything from my herb distributors about the imminance of the enforcement of the codex in the US. I will have to just keep doing what I am doing for the sake of my clients and family & friends, until I can’t do it anymore and have to change my approach.
I think the US government agencies have been operating arrogantly for so long that anything short of a full citizens’ rebellion will have no effect. I find myself hoping that the earth will itself take action against Washington DC, but that is like hoping Jesus will come in the sky and rescue Christians from the consequences of their life style…

democrats and republicans are mostly all in the same boat when it comes to the introduction of the NEW WORLD ORDER. The murderous clintons (Rest In Peace Vince Foster), daddy and sonny bush, cheney, kissinger, et al are all members of the bildebergs, cfr, tlc, etc.

codex alementarius is designed to erradicate what is HEALTHY (SUPPLEMENTS as an example) in order to CONTROL us by way of a managed food and drug supply that will KILL most of us andleave docile and sterile the remaining ones who will do the bidding of the elite.

Senator John McCain you are interferring in my life and the lives of all of us who want to have freedom of choice regarding our health and nutrition. Perhaps if you would have taken some vitamins and supplements, you would not have been the bottom of his graduating class.!! !! . You do not even know how many houses you own. Eight or nine??? It is time for you to bow out. You have been Senator long enough. Time for the old rocking chair Mr. McCain. There must be something in it for you to go after the vitamins. You got lucky and married the catsup lady. Don’t you have something else to do? Maybe take care of your houses? .Maybe visit the Panama Canal and stay there? Veronica

My nickname is medicinewoman!……..I harvest wild herbs and plants that heal…and make my own stuff…I haven”t had a cold or flue, or any other things in 14 years…I use homeopathic things and vitamins………………………….
I will not take vaccinations…………and feel pretty perky for going on 75 years of age.
everything that counteracts any illness has more side effects than the illness itself.
tell mccain to shove it!

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